Most of the cost of energy is the fossil fuels themselves, or taxation to discourage use. The cost of photovoltaic power seems to be governed by a scaling law, that has held for several decades now. [1] It is now cheaper than fossil fuels in sunny regions for electricity generation, without subsidy or other incentive. Even cautious estimates of further improvement, produce rather pleasing scenarios a few decades out.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices

> cheaper than fossil fuels

One needs to specify if this means "cheaper than a new construction fossil fuel plant" or "cheaper than operating an existing fossil fuel plant". Whether a CO2 tax is involved should also be specified. Things will really take off when existing plants can no longer compete (particularly in places like the US where overall demand is growing slowly, if at all). Of course, this will depress the price of the fuel (natural gas is in the doldrums in the US) which will delay things.

The LCOE of solar is lower than the LCOE of fossil fuels. That includes setup costs. But it also of course wins without it for both sources because you don’t need to buy the fuel. It’s not yet there if you’re also looking at the broader cycle that includes operating battery storage. The LCOE of battery and hydrogen fuel tech then depends on the price of the energy. So it’s very difficult to define. But it is getting there.

The important point is that if one already has fossil fuel plants, you have to compare the marginal cost of operating those plants vs. the full cost (including capital cost) of replacing them with renewables (CO2 costs included if any). Otherwise, they'll just keep operating the fossil fuel plants. Eventually the fossil fuel plants will age out and be replaced in an apples-to-apples comparison, but that could take decades.

Not quite. LCOE is useful building out capacity but it varies tremendously based on land availability / suitability and the feasibility of getting it into the transmission system. So these things have huge error bars. These are also about cost of producing the energy. What we need to think about is also the demand for energy. Solar is infinitely cheaper (that is, negative prices) at the ideal times. But then it’s gone entirely at others.

Gas is very good for those consistent other times. Batteries are not. Batteries are better for the excess demand during those off times. they offset the backup peaker gas plants as mentioned in the article.

All of which to say the batteries can eat away at the margins of gas plants, but it is incrementally less cost effective to replace each one.

If you operate in an environment where you can supply renewables outside of solar time in quantities high enough to not need the gas, the gas plants will become a lot less useful. Hydro power is the king here. If you don’t have that gas is still probably pretty important.

It might get to the point where a lot of these gas plants are less profitable because they expected to be more relevant and will not be able to justify their fixed costs. But shutting down those plants is probably more expensive to society than just subsidizing them to stay open.

So it’s complicated. The energy and battery side of the inflation reduction act has been HUGE though. Society doesn’t really get how much of an important investment the Biden admin has done here

Thanks for the thoughtful reply! That does change my viewpoint a bit!

What a wonderful internet interaction!

Nuclear fusion has entered the chat.

Solar and batteries is fusion at a distance with almost no containment, embrittlement, or other technology challenges.

But with albedo changes and other negative environmental impacts. TAANSTAFL. That said, fusion is a long way off.

What's the cost per MWh on that again?

Last I checked, the going rate is roughly 3.5 Billion for 3 MJ. Cost coming down quickly though! Only a couple dozen orders of magnitude to go and it’ll blow solar out of the water!

Well, the cost estimate for ARC was $29/W(e,net) for the capital cost of the reactor, or about 2x the cost of Vogtle-3/4 (for entire power plants).

We’re so sorry, nuclear fusion is experiencing high latency and packet loss. Please try again in $(10 RANDOM %100) years.

Current nuclear fission reactors can safely and reliably supply all our electricity needs. France rapidly built out their nuclear fleet in response to the 1973 oil crisis, achieving more than 70% of their electricity generation within 20 years. If the political will is there, it can be done.

The problem is that Western elites are corrupt and incompetent. They foolishly outsourced their manufacturing to a rival nation, which is now the rising superpower. Germany shut down its nuclear reactors and spent hundreds of billions on solar, while their manufacturing sector implodes from high electricity prices.

Corporate elites are increasingly extractive as exemplified by rising wealth gap, housing / healthcare / education costs, enshittification of internet platforms, etc. Any narrative which justifies price increases is gleefully propagated by the media hegemons. Climate change is used to markup prices on everything so consumers can feel self-righteous paying through the nose. Yet none of this will make a difference. China, India, and Africa will continue burning the cheapest fuels available to support their development.